Safe haven or last resort?

By Lucy Wilkins BBC News

The safe haven laws are designed to protect the child and the parent

With the best intentions in the world, Nebraska lawmakers wanted to prevent harm coming to unwanted babies abandoned by their parents, the so-called "dumpster babies".

So, following other US states, they voted for a "safe haven" law.

They passed the briefest of legislation - just two sentences - protecting parents from prosecution if they left a child at a designated hospital.

But it was that single word "child" which had unexpected consequences for them.

It was widely assumed to mean any person under the age of 18, and so within two months more than 20 parents had abandoned children - not their newborn babies, but their growing teenagers.

One father left his four daughters and five sons, the oldest being 17.

His one-year-old daughter was the youngest of the 34 children abandoned between 13 September and 14 November, according to Nebraska's Department of Health and Human Services.

Other states specifically limit the age at which a child can be abandoned without the parent being criminally liable for abandonment.

These range widely, from 72 hours to one year, according to the Child Welfare Information Gateway, but none are anywhere close to 18 years of age.

Great opportunity

The safe haven laws began with Texas (60 days) in 1999. They were designed to show struggling mothers that there was an alternative to leaving the unwanted offspring in a rubbish bin or toilet cubicle.

People seriously underestimated the pain of Nebraska's families Steven Boes Boys Town charity

While law enforcement agencies are informed when the child is abandoned, for the parents - and they were all single parents except for two cases - in Nebraska the option of leaving their children without punishment was too great an opportunity to miss.

It also appealed to parents from five other states who drove to Nebraska to leave their children, among them an 11-year-old boy from Florida and a 16-year-old girl from Arizona.

When the governor announced a review of the law, after a 48-hour-stretch in which four children were abandoned, a further seven were abandoned in 10 days.

And in what could be the final abandonment under the original law, a five-year-old boy was left less than 24 hours before senators assembled to discuss the issue.

Many groups urged parents to take responsibility for their children

The Department of Health and Human Services has condensed the bleak circumstances of the abandoned children into an anonymous table of statistics to provide a snapshot for Nebraska's senators ahead of their special session to change the law.

The table, which was prepared when the tally stood at 30 children, shows that all were urban dwellers, 20 were white and the rest black except for one of mixed white-Native American background.

Encouragingly, all had been "safe from immediate harm" when abandoned.

But over half had previously been wards of the state - all but one case had involved previous allegations of abuse or neglect and most had received some level of mental health care.

'Desperate parents'

Father Steven Boes, national executive director of the charity Boys Town, said the number of abandoned children had exposed a gap which already existed in helping families struggling with behavioural issues.

"There are really desperate parents out there. Many have been trying to get services for a long time," he told the BBC.

I was using the law because my son is a danger to himself and the family at home Mother who abandoned son

"People seriously underestimated the pain of Nebraska's families."

He advocates a quicker and more appropriate response from the state for treating troubled children, but still urges parents to take responsibility.

"Some parents don't have the capacity to wait for help, they may not have the social skills, the patience to wait and wade through what the state offers, but they need to be strong and the state needs to be responsive."

While a one-year-old may not realise the impact of their parent driving away from them at a hospital, a 15-year-old certainly will, Father Boes said.

"If parents truly give up on children, it is difficult for the child to overcome. The damage has been done."

One mother complained of the coverage given to the issue and explained her reasons for abandoning her son in a letter published in the Omaha World-Herald newspaper.

"I did not leave my child under the safe haven law because I did not want to be a parent, nor did I not want the responsibility of being a parent.

"I was using the law because my son is a danger to himself and the family at home. I also stated [to officials] I took him to the hospital I did because he needed more help than I am able to give him."

As for the outcomes for some of the children and teenagers - eight were housed with relatives, six in a shelter and 11 in foster care.

Two were in hospital, one in a group home and one had gone back to their parents.

MAX AGE AT WHICH CHILD CAN BE LEFT IN 'SAFE HAVEN'

All states except Nebraska

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